(OTTAWA) Senators on Tuesday completed their clause-by-clause study of Bill C-18 to force Google and Meta to compensate news media for sharing their content, raising the possibility that the legislative proposal will become law in the next few days.
This new milestone went smoothly, in the space of about two hours. Moreover, almost all of the amendments adopted at this stage have the support of the government or, at the very least, the latter does not oppose them.
The sponsor of the bill in the Upper House, Senator Peter Harder, pointed this out at every opportunity during clause-by-clause study in the Senate Communications Committee.
The report containing the committee’s amendments still needs to get the approval of the full upper house, which could happen as early as Wednesday. Again, other changes could be made on the floor of the Senate.
Then the bill can get the final go-ahead from the Senate – third reading – before it is sent back to the House of Commons and eventually fully passed to become reality.
This end of the legislative journey occurs in the context where Meta has set in motion, as announced at the beginning of the month, its blocking of news media content from its Facebook and Instagram platforms following repeated threats for months. The initiative is presented by the digital company as “tests” affecting certain Canadians, which must make it possible to identify any problem before definitively turning off the tap.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again condemned Meta’s attitude and actions. “It is unacceptable and we will not allow this intimidation to work. We will always be there to defend Canadians’ access to news. It’s fundamental to our democracy,” he told reporters before taking part in question period.
Transfer of “value”
The only amendment adopted Tuesday in the Senate committee that risks being refused by the government – if it survives the next steps – is a proposal put forward by Quebec Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne.
This amendment adopted in committee aims to circumscribe the entire negotiation process provided for in Bill C-18 between the media and “web giants” within the framework of an “exchange of value”.
Thus, it would be specified that “the negotiation process […] aims to determine, on the one hand, the value that each party derives from the news content of an eligible news undertaking made available by a digital news intermediary and, on the other hand, the portion of this value that will be transferred to qualifying news enterprise”.
This approach would be applied at every stage of the negotiations. The latter will be framed by the future law to provide for mediation and arbitration processes, if necessary, between the media and digital platforms.
Senator Harder has signaled that the government “strongly opposes” it.
He mentioned that the negotiations are “intentionally” set in such a way as to “allow (the parties) to negotiate outside the framework of monetary compensation”.
To this, Senator Miville-Dechêne replied that her use of the word “value” should be seen in a broader sense than just monetary.
The bill, as sent to the Senate by the House of Commons, establishes that the question of “added value, monetary and other” must be considered at the arbitration stage only, noted the deputy minister Heritage Assistant, Thomas Owen Ripley.
This was done in the hope that most negotiations would be concluded without the need for a “last resort” arbitration process, he explained, and to leave, in the earlier stages, “a large margin maneuver (and) discretion to the parties”.